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Don't Poo — Vote!
01:32:35
Barack Obama hits the campaign trail—and discusses Trump's sh*tposting—as voters head to the polls. Donald Trump sits down for a lengthy interview with 60 Minutes—the same program he sued in 2024—to discuss immigration raids, his new fascination with nuclear weapons, and his surprising pardon of a Chinese crypto tycoon. Jon, Lovett, and Tommy discuss the interview's most shocking moments, share their final thoughts on the 2025 elections, and react to the garish Gatsby-themed party the President threw at Mar-a-Largo as SNAP benefits expired for more than 40 million Americans on Halloween night. Then, George Retes, the combat veteran and American citizen who was detained by immigration agents with no explanation while driving to work, stops by the studio and shares his harrowing story.
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- [00:00]
Jon Lovett
Today's presenting sponsor is Simplisafe Home Security. Are you feeling particularly anxious? Mm, unsettled.
- [00:05]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [00:06]
Jon Lovett
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- [01:31]
Norah O'Donnell
This is an Etsy holiday ad, but you won't hear any sleigh bells or classic carols. Instead, you'll hear something original. The sound of an Etsy holiday, which sounds like this.
- [01:46]
Jon Favreau
Woohoo.
- [01:49]
Norah O'Donnell
Now that's spelled. Want to hear it again? Get original and affordable gifts from small shops on Etsy. For gifts that say I get you shop Etsy.
- [02:18]
Jon Favreau
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
- [02:21]
Jon Lovett
I'm Jon Lovet.
- [02:21]
Tommy Vietor
I'm Tommy Vivator.
- [02:22]
Jon Favreau
Love it. You're in New York. Are you doing some last minute canvassing for Cuomo?
- [02:27]
Jon Lovett
No, I'm doing it's more like hurricane or war reporting as I watch the people escape the city before the socialists take over. A lot of BMW X5s with their stuff loaded on the roof like they're Okies. Pretty exciting time here, just trying to.
- [02:41]
Jon Favreau
Stuff all the means of production you can in your pockets before you take off.
- [02:45]
Jon Lovett
It's my last time visiting New York City as a business owner. Excited to be here, part of a commune of some kind in the future, but for now I'm here as management.
- [02:57]
Tommy Vietor
Bill Ackerman's just throwing all the words into his bucket for his long, long tweets. Oh, the character.
- [03:02]
Jon Lovett
That's right.
- [03:04]
Jon Favreau
Enjoy the grocery stores while you can. On today's show, we'll talk about Trump's lengthy 60 Minutes interview from Mar A Lago that was recorded just hours before hosting a Great Gatsby themed Halloween party in the midst of a government shutdown he refuses to do anything about. We'll also cover the newsiest moments from that interview, which includes Trump's new urge to test nuclear weapons, potential ground wars in Venezuela and Nigeria, and his push to end the filibuster. There you go. We'll also talk about the intra Maga battle over Tucker Carlson and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, as well as all the last minute activity in the big elections wrapping up today. Then I'll be talking to George Reddes, the combat veteran and American citizen who was detained by ICE while driving to work and put in solitary confinement for three days with absolutely no due process whatsoever. Wild story, enraging story. But let's start with Trump's big interview with 60 Minutes. Norah O', Donnell, his first sit down with the show since CBS and Paramount chose to pay him a $16 million settlement over their decision to not air one part of one answer that Kamala Harris gave during her 60 Minutes interview during the 2024 campaign. It was also Trump's first interview since David Ellison, son of Trump donor and close ally Larry Ellison, took over CBS and installed Barry Weiss as the news division's editor in chief. Trump, of course, brought up the settlement during the interview, as well as all the good things he's heard about Weiss. But he also faced some tough newsy questions from Nora on a range of topics that we'll go through. But let's start with deportations and and military deployments.
- [04:38]
Norah O'Donnell
Americans have been watching videos of ICE tackling a young mother, tear gas being used in a Chicago residential neighborhood, and the smashing of car windows. Have some of these raids gone too far?
- [04:52]
Donald Trump
No I think they haven't gone far enough.
- [04:54]
Norah O'Donnell
You're okay with those tactics?
- [04:55]
Donald Trump
Yeah, because you have to get the people out.
- [04:57]
Norah O'Donnell
Well, you promised in your campaign that you were going to deport the worst of the worst. Violent criminals, rapists. But a lot of the people that your administration has arrested and deported aren't violent criminals. Landscapers, nannies, construction workers, landscapers aren't. You said, if we need more than the National Guard, we'll send more than the National Guard. What does that mean, send more than the National Guard?
- [05:21]
Donald Trump
Well, if you had to send in the army, or if you had to send in the Marines, I'd do that in a heartbeat.
- [05:25]
Norah O'Donnell
So you're going to send the military into American cities?
- [05:28]
Donald Trump
Well, if I wanted to, I could. If I wanted to use the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection act has been used routinely by presidents. And if I needed it, that would mean I could bring in the army, the Marines, I could bring in whoever I want. But I haven't chosen to use it. I hope you give me credit for that.
- [05:42]
Jon Favreau
So those answers both sent to me, like Stephen Miller very much still running the show, and maybe Trump's information diet, What'd you guys make of those answers? Tommy?
- [05:53]
Tommy Vietor
I tend to take Trump at his word that he doesn't think it's gone far enough. I mean, it would have been very easy. Obviously, he didn't have the benefit of the video of some of those worst excesses. But it'd be very easy to rhetorically distance yourself from, from, like, abuses or harming American citizens. And there's real political risk, I think, for Trump if people begin to think that the raids have gone too far. And like, stories about Americans getting beat up, George Reddes's story, the priest we've talked about who got shot in the head with a pepper ball, raids at Home Depot, like, you know, your sort of feature stories about someone who's lived here for 30 years and is now getting deported despite not having done anything. Like, those are bad. People don't like that. And I think it's telling that he doesn't distance himself there. And also the policy itself has gotten more extreme. And, you know, like, that's happening with personnel, too. Like, Tom Homan seemingly wasn't extreme enough for these guys. They've elevated this nut, Greg Bevino, who is behind a lot of the worst stuff happening in Chicago, for example, like the tear gassing of kids, trick or treating. They made up a new title for him. He's now the commander at large. He reports directly to Kristi Noem. So Stephen Miller is clearly a huge driver of the policy. I agree with you. But Trump seem to think, he seems.
- [06:59]
Jon Favreau
To like it, love it. You've been going back and forth on the Insurrection act and the potential invocation of the Insurrection Act. I thought it was interesting that he wants credit for not doing it yet.
- [07:12]
Tommy Vietor
Right.
- [07:12]
Jon Lovett
Yeah. So part of this, I do think he will never, when asked by a mainstream journalist, are you going too far? He will never, ever say yes. But if he's called by his, say, Agriculture secretary about raids at meatpacking plants causing a problem for business, all of a sudden, he'll pop off about how, yeah, we've got to deport people, but we also need people to do the farming and do the growing and do the jobs and the landscaping. So I don't know if this represents any kind of actual shift or kind of new insight into what he actually thinks, but he will not give an inch on any of this when he's going to talk to a mainstream journalist because he wants to do his sort of tough guy performance. I wonder if he's asked, like, how about people who support his policies on immigration broadly or voted for him because they thought he would crack down on the border that view his success at the border as something that they appreciate, but worry about this, what he would say if it's framed more towards the people who actually kind of are allied with him. But beyond that, he is going down this dark path and does not seem at least rhetorically interested in stopping.
- [08:24]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I sort of wonder if what he would have said if he was asked about, like the ProPublica story that sort of detailed all of the American citizens who'd been detained, I imagine he would just be like, well, I don't know anything about that.
- [08:37]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [08:38]
Jon Favreau
And they just sort of like they were bad. They wave it off. To your point, Tommy, though, new NBC News poll that came out over the weekend, you know, by 55 to 44% people do not think the current deployments of National Guard troops are justified. ICE is viewed positively by only 39% of Americans. And 50% view ICE negatively, including two thirds of black and Hispanic voters view ICE negatively. And those negative views apparently of ice, that's like a new high. It's doubled since 2020. And obviously they weren't too, they weren't too loved in 2020 either. So that is interesting.
- [09:12]
Jon Lovett
And also just there's also been a bunch of reporting about division inside the administration between ICE and the Border Patrol, about those that believe ICE is being tagged for some of the worst excesses of the Border Patrol. People inside of those agen believe they're going too far in a way that is redounding to negative perceptions of the agency and are not contributing to the goals they set out to achieve at the beginning. So I do think beneath this, there is still that actual political problem. He's just not gonna answer it in a question that's about, are you tough enough, sir?
- [09:44]
Jon Favreau
I will say just broadly watching the 60 Minutes interview, it really, it stands out how long it's been since he sat down for a full interview with a real journalist. Because I think Nora did a good job. She also just had so many things to get through that. Even on something like that, you can't really follow up more than once or twice because you really have to talk about a whole bunch of shit.
- [10:08]
Tommy Vietor
And he gave her 90 minutes. I mean, this is a long interview. Again, the one thing this guy does is he makes himself available. Usually it's to Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend more than anybody else, but, you know, 90 minutes.
- [10:19]
Jon Favreau
Trump was also asked about his recent pardon of Binance founder cz, who was serving time for failing to stop terrorist money laundering on his platform. The pardon came after Sisi publicly asked for a pardon and after Binance made sure that Trump's family crypto coin was used to facilitate a $2 billion investment. Complete coincidence, of course. Here's the 60 Minutes exchange.
- [10:40]
Norah O'Donnell
Why did you pardon him?
- [10:41]
Donald Trump
Okay, are you ready? I don't know who he is. I know he got a four month sentence or something like that, and I heard it was a Biden witch hunt.
- [10:49]
Norah O'Donnell
His crypto exchange, Binance, helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of of World Liberty Financial's stablecoin. And then you pardoned CZ. How do you address the appearance of pay for play?
- [11:04]
Donald Trump
Well, here's the thing. I know nothing about it because I'm too busy doing the other. I can only tell you that.
- [11:08]
Norah O'Donnell
What do you got to.
- [11:09]
Donald Trump
I can only tell you this.
- [11:10]
Jon Lovett
I do.
- [11:11]
Tommy Vietor
Look, Nora, like, had good, tough questions on this. I do wonder if that's a moment where you throw away your script and you're like, you don't know the guy who you pardoned that you've gotten a bunch of tough questions about, like, the really corrupt guy, the money launderer. You don't know who that is. You just pardoned him.
- [11:23]
Jon Favreau
Are you not very upset right now that Joe Biden apparently didn't really pardon any of the people he pardoned, but used an auto pen?
- [11:31]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [11:31]
Jon Favreau
Isn't that one of your big. You Want an investigation over that. But you don't know the people you're pardoning.
- [11:35]
Jon Lovett
It's crazy. There's an auto pen hanging. He hung the auto pen in the White House because he's mad that Joe Biden didn't know who he's pardoning. It's outrageous. Outrageous.
- [11:45]
Jon Favreau
You'll never believe this, guys. But the rest of that Trump answer, where she asks him, is he concerned at all? And he says, I can't say because I can't say. I'm not concerned. I don't. I'd rather not have you ask the question. That part was omitted from the extended version of the interview on YouTube. So can we all sue for $15 million?
- [12:05]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah. Congrats on the new gig, Bari Weiss.
- [12:07]
Jon Lovett
I didn't, I didn't realize that. I didn't, because I know that. I saw that they had cut it from the. What had aired and I saw the transcript of it. It doesn't even, it's not even in that extended cut on you. They just don't even have the video of it.
- [12:16]
Jon Favreau
That's what Austin told us. Not even on the extended.
- [12:18]
Tommy Vietor
That's why it is just for folks who have been following this. I mean, CZ did four months in jail. Binance paid 4.3 billion in fines. It was the largest settlement in U.S. history. And again, they willfully fail to report financial transactions with Al Qaeda, isis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas. There was money going to Iran and other sanctioned companies. There was money going to websites selling child sex abuse material. And the willful piece of so is so important. Like the, the New Yorker quoted Binance's chief compliance officer saying, I assume it's like a slack message or something saying like, come on, they are here for crime. They knew what their customers were doing. And so, but Trump, like, he pardons this guy obviously, because Binance, they wrote the code to USD1, which is the Trump family stablecoin. They facilitated this investment into Binance by this Emirati backed firm. And Binance asked that it be done in USD 1, which was barely on the map. It had like been launched in March. Now it's the sixth largest stablecoin in the world. And the Trump family will make an estimated $80 million per year in interest alone off of that investment. That's how we got a.
- [13:20]
Jon Favreau
He knows nothing about it.
- [13:22]
Tommy Vietor
Knows nothing about it.
- [13:22]
Jon Favreau
He knows nothing about. I don't know. Ready. I don't know this guy. He was like proud of the answer too. Ready? Ready. I have no idea who he is. Ready. Worked on this one.
- [13:30]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, it's like you think you've got me in some kind of gotcha. Guess what? I don't have a fucking clue who this guy is. My doing. This wasn't corruption. It's pure incompetence. The other part of this, too, all these pardons like Santos, cz, the insurrectionists. Right now, there are people inside the Department of Justice, the FBI, prosecutors, looking at whether or not to investigate Republicans or other allies of Trump. Like, I don't know how you would, like, bring yourself to put the energy and hard work into what it takes to do one of these prosecutions, to do one of these investigations, when you know that you're gonna have the legs cut out from under you. The second anybody gets a call into Trump because he is pardoning anybody, he's basically made it so that Republicans or his closest allies cannot be held accountable for federal crimes.
- [14:24]
Jon Favreau
I don't think those people should worry because I don't think they're gonna get assigned to any more of these cases while Donald Trump is president. I don't think that's gonna be a priority for.
- [14:32]
Tommy Vietor
By the way, did George Santos get hired to do something with doj? He posted this photo of himself now that he's out, and he's like, I'm doing something, working with DOJ in some way. But it wasn't clear what he's talking about.
- [14:41]
Jon Favreau
I mean, I'm sure sky's the limit. Deputy Attorney General, what does he want?
- [14:44]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, give him a gig.
- [14:45]
Jon Lovett
He's gonna go talk to school kids about, you know, you know, like, staying clean, that kind of thing.
- [14:54]
Jon Favreau
So on cz, Trump's going with no idea who he is. But on Sunday, when he was asked about Prince Andrew being banished from the British royal family over his involvement in the Epstein scandal, Trump said, quote, that's been a tragic situation, and it's too bad. I mean, I feel badly for the family. Not exactly a characteristic show of empathy from Donald Trump, is it?
- [15:15]
Tommy Vietor
Not the families of the victims. He feels bad for the Royal family. I mean, again, remember, so this. This book came out by an Epstein victim named Virginia Giuffre. She died by suicide in February. In that book, she says she was forced to have sex with Prince Andrew after being trafficked by Epstein. And that Prince Andrew said to her that his daughters were, quote, just a little younger than you on the evening of their first alleged sexual encounter when she was 17. So this guy is a total scumbag. It has been known at the time he did this disastrous 2019 interview with the BBC where he said he had no recollection of meeting Giuffre, but then he settles a lawsuit with her for tens of millions of dollars, so it's gross. He lied about cutting ties with ep. There's emails that prove it, but. Yeah, but Trump's empathy is with the Royal Family.
- [16:01]
Jon Favreau
I just don't get like, love it. It's like he, he could have so easily given an answer there that's like, no, you know what? Good. He's a creep. Just like Jeffrey Epstein's a creep and that's why I kicked him out of my club and I don't want to have any. I don't have anything to do with these people like you. What is the purpose? Who is this helping? Aside from Prince Andrew, I have for no fucking idea.
- [16:21]
Jon Lovett
It's actually like, strange. He's, he's, he's shown a great deal of empathy in the past couple of weeks for Argentinian beef producers and Prince Andrew, like, that's sort of where his heart goes. I don't know if it's because he is thinking about Prince Charles and trying to like, you know, be sympathetic to Prince Charles in some way because he's a king and he likes kings. It's just fucking bizarre. Or is it just that Andrew knows? Shit, you gotta go.
- [16:49]
Jon Favreau
Remember Ghislaine Maxwell? First it was I wish her well back during the campaign. Now she's in a minimum security. Now she was transferred to a nice prison and who knows if she'll get the pardon herself.
- [16:59]
Tommy Vietor
Maybe Andrew will live in a compound on Mar A Lago. He needs housing. He's getting kicked out of his palace.
- [17:04]
Jon Favreau
Maybe he'll get. Maybe he'll be at the next Gatsby party.
- [17:06]
Jon Lovett
Oh, yeah, he'll be at the roaring 20s events. They're doing a series this year at Mar a Lago. Yeah, it does seem like if anyone even tangentially related to this situation, he has nothing but warm words. Until they die in prison, then he can call them creeps.
- [17:19]
Jon Favreau
It is true. The one constant for Trump, though, is sympathy for other rich and powerful creeps like he does. Yeah, he always has lots of sympathy for them. Pod Save America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. What if you could consistently find whatever it is you're looking for right away? We're talking everything from parking spots to holiday gifts to jackets or jeans that fit perfectly. Imagine how much time you'd save. While you may never instantly find these things, if you're hiring, you can find qualified candidates right away, time and time again. With ZipRecruiter.
- [17:56]
Jon Lovett
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- [18:01]
Jon Favreau
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- [18:45]
Norah O'Donnell
This is an Etsy holiday ad, but you won't hear any sleigh bells or classic carols. Instead you'll hear something original the of an Etsy holiday which sounds like this. Now that's special. Want to hear it again? Get original and affordable gifts from small shops on Etsy. For gifts that say I get you shop Etsy.
- [19:13]
Jon Favreau
The president of peace. Also got a few questions about the military buildup and illegal executions he's ordered in the Caribbean. Specifically the threats his administration keeps making against Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. Here's that exchange.
- [19:26]
Norah O'Donnell
Are we going to war against Venezuela?
- [19:28]
Donald Trump
I doubt it. I don't think so. But they've been treating us very badly. Not only on drugs, they've dumped hundreds of thousands of people into our country that we didn't want. People from prisons. They emptied their mental institutions and their insane asylum.
- [19:42]
Norah O'Donnell
Are Maduro's days as president numbered?
- [19:44]
Donald Trump
I would say, yeah. I think so.
- [19:46]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [19:47]
Norah O'Donnell
And this issue of potential land strikes in Venezuela, is that true?
- [19:50]
Donald Trump
I don't tell you that. I mean, I'm not saying it's true or untrue, but I, you know, I wouldn't. Why would I be inclined to say that I would do that, but Because I don't talk to a reporter about whether or not I'm going to.
- [20:01]
Jon Favreau
That sound like a guy who's Just saber rattling to you or.
- [20:04]
Tommy Vietor
Fair point at the end there.
- [20:05]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [20:05]
Tommy Vietor
So the last time we talked about this issue, I think I cited a stat from this think tank CSIS that said about 10% of all deployed US naval assets were in the Caribbean. Since then, Trump has announced they're sending the USS Gerald Ford, which, which is an aircraft carrier. So that means when that bad boy gets there, it comes with a couple guided missile destroyers, there will be another 4,000 additional troops. I think it gets like 16,000 US troops and sailors in the Caribbean total. And that comes on top of all the other stuff like a nuclear powered sub, an amphibious assault ship, B52 bombers, B1 bombers, F35s. People spotted these like specialized attack helicopters off the coast of Venezuela, training.
- [20:43]
Jon Favreau
And so silver lining. More troops in the Caribbean means fewer troops available for the cities.
- [20:48]
Tommy Vietor
That's true. That is true. But the interesting thing about this is as the Caribbean buildup grows, they are increasingly hitting boats that are alleged narco traffickers in the Pacific Ocean on the other side of the continent. Right. So none of this makes any sense. You have all these troops. 16,000 U.S. troops in the Caribbean were killing people in the Pacific Ocean. And so there were reports last week that I think Nora was getting out. The US had already picked targets in Venezuela, on Venezuelan soil, to hit. This whole operation is reportedly being run by Marco Rubio, who wants a regime change operation to topple the Maduro government, in part because he thinks you take down the Cuban government by taking out Maduro first. So it's completely insane. He's also doing this while demanding the Nobel Peace Prize, which is annoying and galling, but yeah, I mean, it feels like there's a lot of momentum behind this. We'll see if he actually does it.
- [21:37]
Jon Favreau
But you see that NBC News just reported too that they've already started planning. The Defense Department has already, sorry, Department of War has already started planning for strikes in Mexico to get the cartels there. And we should know that the strikes aren't imminent, according to NBC News's reporting. But the planning has already begun.
- [21:54]
Tommy Vietor
I mean, at least that's where like fentanyl trafficking actually happens. There's no fentanyl in Venezuela yet. They keep claiming that these ships are loaded up with fentanyl. If anything, it's cocaine, but it's probably not even going to the us.
- [22:04]
Jon Favreau
How many countries in Central and South America can we go to war with? What is going on here?
- [22:09]
Tommy Vietor
Let me google how many there are.
- [22:10]
Jon Lovett
It's just so sad that all this is happening while John Bolton is unavailable. I know, what a bummer for him.
- [22:16]
Jon Favreau
Because, I mean, this is bittersweet, would you call it?
- [22:19]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [22:19]
Jon Lovett
Like he sees all this, the amassing of US military assets off the coast and he's just like, God damn it, I can't even get off on this ramp.
- [22:26]
Jon Favreau
I'm so fucking.
- [22:27]
Jon Lovett
Because I'm so anxious because of my trials and my crimes. Fuck, this sucks. That's what he thinks.
- [22:34]
Tommy Vietor
This whole thing is so 80s, though. It's very Trumpian in that sense. It's like the worst excesses of the Reagan era. Noriega, the CIA toppling governments. I mean, it's just a throwback.
- [22:44]
Jon Lovett
Coke is back.
- [22:45]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, coke is back.
- [22:46]
Jon Favreau
I did see in some of the polling over the weekend, we've previously seen polling that shows strikes are unfortunately on the boats. Quite popular. Strikes in the boats, even lobbing a few strikes to Venezuela or whatever if there's narco traffickers. But then someone finally asked the question. I think it was a YouGov poll about, like, military action in Venezuela. It's very unpopular.
- [23:10]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [23:11]
Jon Favreau
And this is where Trump is living. Right. Which is he knows that wars, people don't like wars, they don't like troops, they don't like, you know, the potential loss of American life or spending billions of dollars on foreign wars. They don't like any of that, but they do like it. If he can just pretend that the whole thing is just a few quick strikes, taking out boats, then. Then he's got the public with them.
- [23:29]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, I think, like, you know, he'll win a couple rounds of PR wars and headlines. But ultimately fentanyl goes from chemicals in China that get sent to Mexico where they're put together, and traffic to the United States. If you're worried about cocaine, the problem is much more coming from Ecuador and Colombia. But blowing up a bunch of boats, you know, in the Pacific or off the coast of Venezuela and the Caribbean, it's just not going to solve any problems. I mean, again, it might like Pete Hegseth likes it. He likes to tweet it out and show these snuff films, but you're not going to fix anything.
- [23:58]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [23:58]
Jon Lovett
I also think it does matter too, that you have Republicans coming out of these closed door hearing, being like, we're not satisfied with these answers. You have Rand Paul saying, these are the definition of extraversion, of these are the definition of extrajudicial killings. Reports that they don't even know the names of who they're killing. The idea that, oh, there are three hops or to some three degrees from direct observation of the traffickers themselves, which is sort of absolutely shocking. So I do think the public debate will matter.
- [24:25]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, it's like you're neighbors with the cousin of a drug trafficker. You can be blown up in these strikes under like a three hop intelligence scenario. It's insane.
- [24:35]
Jon Favreau
Which of course is. There's no legal basis for that. It's fucking made up. Three hop, but bullshit again.
- [24:40]
Tommy Vietor
This is another place where people will go to jail, I think someday, based on this policy, if Trump doesn't stick around in office forever, this is just extrajudicial murder.
- [24:49]
Jon Favreau
Seems like Trump now wants to start wars on as many continents as possible. He also threatened to attack Nigeria over the weekend based on what he says is the country's failure to protect Christians. Trump said he ordered the Department of War to prepare for possible action to wipe out Islamic terrorists. And that quote, if we attack, it will be fast, vicious and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our cherished Christians. Tommy, what's this all about?
- [25:14]
Tommy Vietor
Unclear. So there are real extremist groups and real extremist group problems in Nigeria. There's a group called Boko Haram. They operate mostly in northeastern Nigeria. There is no evidence that their attacks are focused on Christians. In fact, like the Boko Haram just indiscriminately murder civilians. They attack churches, mosques, anyone, but they, they operate in areas that are predominantly Muslim. So the idea that like Boko Haram is doing this is, is. Doesn't make any sense. There's also, I mean, complicating this is there's a. There's a problem in central Nigeria where you've got these, like, semi nomadic cattle herders attacking Christian farmers. But that's fighting over scarce land and water resources. And so those clashes really have killed a bunch of Christian farmers. But those are not Boko Haram groups. Those are just like people who need land. So the Nigerian government is just like confused. I think they want U.S. support. They want to help battling Boko Haram and other extremist groups. But making this like a Muslim versus Christian thing is really unhelpful. And the Nigerian president, this guy, bulletinubu, he is married to a Christian minister, he's a Muslim man. So I think it's like, hard to argue that he's turning a blind eye to attacks on Christians or at least there's no evidence of that. I think it's just more like it's really hard to battle these extremist groups. And Nigeria is situated in a part of Africa that is just south of all these countries where there's a really bad extremism problem and there have been a bunch of coups and that has led to the US and French counterterrorism forces getting pushed out, the Russians coming in, the Wagner group and these other mercenaries. And so it's not clear to me what Trump is doing. Like, I think there's a bunch of right wing Christian groups who have been lobbying Congress and stuff, and I think that probably got him.
- [26:54]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I was like, if I had to guess, it would be like something started in a right wing fever swamp online somewhere. But maybe it's this direct lobbying that suddenly it got to him somehow through all of his crazy channels.
- [27:05]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [27:05]
Jon Favreau
People who are now running the government and he was.
- [27:07]
Tommy Vietor
And that's someone he ran into at an event or at Mar a Lago or whatever. I mean, ultimately this will probably result in the US selling a bunch more weapons to Nigeria. But, like, it's just particularly strange in one, it's the second time he's like, claimed genocide against a group that's not being genocided. Like, remember the white farmers in South Africa? And two, there is an actual genocide happening in Sudan as we speak, where the rsf, this militia group, has taken over all of Darfur and are just massacring civilians. But he's tweeting about Christians in Nigeria. It's just like very divorced from reality.
- [27:38]
Jon Favreau
Fucking weird. Dan and I talked last episode about Trump's announcement that the US Will resume nuclear testing, quote, on an equal basis. That's Trump's words and Trump's seeming confusion between testing that involves detonating actual nuclear warheads, which no country but North Korea has done since 1992, and even North Korea has done it since 2017. Difference between that and testing nuclear delivery devices, which Russia has recently done. Trump's energy secretary, Chris Wright, who would be responsible for testing nukes, clarified over the weekend that the tests will not be nuclear explosions. But Trump still seemed a bit confused on 60 minutes.
- [28:17]
Norah O'Donnell
Why do we need to test our nuclear weapons?
- [28:19]
Donald Trump
Well, because you have to see how they work. We're the only country that doesn't test. And I want to be, I don't want to be the only country that doesn't test.
- [28:25]
Norah O'Donnell
The only country that doesn't testing nuclear weapons is North Korea.
- [28:29]
Donald Trump
No, no. Russia's testing nuclear weapons.
- [28:32]
Norah O'Donnell
My understanding.
- [28:32]
Donald Trump
And China's testing them too. You just don't know about it.
- [28:35]
Norah O'Donnell
That would be certainly very newsworthy.
- [28:40]
George Reddes
That was like a great moment for Nora.
- [28:42]
Jon Lovett
I, you know, look, there have been Moments like it's an impossible conversation to have with Donald Trump. He's all over the place. You've got every issue under the sun. You got, you got Barry Weiss in the rafters above the fucking studio waiting to pounce down if you go too hard. Like really like a delicate balance, but just incredibly stupid shit.
- [29:02]
Jon Favreau
It is funny listening to Nora try to be like, well, it's my understanding meaning like the facts are, Mr. President, because once again I have to tell you something that's real since you're in fucking La La Land. Yes, Tommy, should we rest easier after Chris Wright's comments or no?
- [29:16]
Tommy Vietor
I hope so. I mean, like you said, I mean the Russians basically like whenever it seems like NATO's going to have some balls and maybe send long range weapons to Ukraine, Putin does something to sort of rattle the nuclear saber. And this time it was again talking about this nuclear cruise missile which he claims to have tested, which they rolled out in 2018 by the way, so this one wasn't new. And then they say they have this other like a super torpedo that can get to the east coast or the west coast and detonate and cause a tsunami, which a lot of people question would ever work, but also neither, neither weapon like changes the strategic calculus of nuclear warfare, which is if you start it like mutually assured destruction will happen in any of these cases, right? So these, these are not like game changing weapons. And so what, what Trump is talking about, I mean, it makes no sense. Like we, like you said, we stopped nuclear testing in 1992. There's the comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was put into Place in 1996. The US doesn't need to test more nuclear weapons because we've tested more nuclear weapons than anybody. We've done like a thousand tests since World War II. The Russians did around 7, the Chinese did 45.
- [30:17]
Jon Lovett
Nice try, guys.
- [30:19]
Tommy Vietor
And like we have more nuclear testing data than anybody. And if we get rid of the restrictions on testing, what will happen? The Chinese will test a ton of nuclear weapons as they raced to build a stockpile that's equivalent to ours before they'll enter into any like non proliferation treaties. So it's a terrible strategic idea. Where are you going to do it? Like we're going to go back to Nevada. I think what the Energy Secretary is getting at is the nuclear testing site has been refurbished to be, to do other things. You would take like a year to 3 years to like get that back to a place where you could actually test nuclear weapons locally.
- [30:53]
Jon Lovett
Focused on, it's mostly focused on sports betting now.
- [30:57]
Tommy Vietor
Just a Cal Sheen Dragon.
- [30:59]
Jon Lovett
It's a lot of servers for those apps.
- [31:01]
Tommy Vietor
Like, people in Nevada would go nuts if all of a sudden we were detonating nukes in the continental US Again. So, anyway, it's just crazy, but there's parts of the conservative movement that actually do want to do this. Like it was part of Project 2025.
- [31:10]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [31:10]
Tommy Vietor
They talked about essentially, like, they said we should ditch the CTBT and be postured to begin testing nukes again. Because some people really believe that the way you win a nuclear war is just by creating more nukes, which is like kind of an idea abandoned by Ronald Reagan in the 80s. But I don't know. These people are nuts. It's funny.
- [31:27]
Jon Lovett
It's funny. Just probably 2025, like, oh, yeah, there's a nuclear section. It's also. It's like their whole philosophy. And that thing was like, no good ideas in a brainstorm.
- [31:35]
Tommy Vietor
Just like, if you've thought of something.
- [31:37]
Jon Lovett
That would make the world a more dangerous and scary place, we want it in here, because this is our fucking shot. Did you see that when he started talking about Taiwan that he said. Now, it was similar to what he said about Maduro. He said, I'm not gonna tell you. You're a journalist. But he said, xi knows what I would do if he were to invade Taiwan. But I'm not telling you. That's stupid.
- [31:59]
Tommy Vietor
Right?
- [32:00]
Jon Favreau
Because you know what the answer is. If you've told him nothing.
- [32:03]
Jon Lovett
Right, Exactly. But just follow it out. It's like, if you've told him, you can tell us. If you haven't told him, I get maybe why you might not want to tell us, but it seems like you've said you've told him so you can tell us.
- [32:14]
Jon Favreau
You take Taiwan, we get access to the chips that we need from them. That's our deal.
- [32:18]
Tommy Vietor
You buy a little crypto.
- [32:20]
Jon Favreau
That's my. Without knowing much, that's just probably what's in Trump's head.
- [32:23]
Tommy Vietor
I also don't.
- [32:24]
Jon Lovett
And I got a lot of beans.
- [32:27]
Jon Favreau
Beans for chips.
- [32:28]
Tommy Vietor
I don't believe for a second that Taiwan didn't come up at the Xi Jinping meeting. And like, there was all this reporting going into it that she thinks he can get Trump to reduce our commitment to Taiwan or. And basically say that we will not intervene if he moves to invade and just trade that away for some sort of economic deal. I'm sure that is on the table and is likely to happen. Yeah. But Trump there. I'm not gonna tell anyone. Only gonna tell my Buddy xi.
- [32:54]
Jon Favreau
So Trump also waited on the other nuclear option in the 60 Minutes interview. Getting rid of the filibuster once and for all. Here's Norah o' Donnell asking Trump about the ongoing government shutdown.
- [33:04]
Norah O'Donnell
Sounds like it's not going to get solved. The shutdown.
- [33:06]
Donald Trump
It's going to get solved.
- [33:07]
Jon Lovett
Yeah.
- [33:07]
Donald Trump
Oh, it's going to get so how we'll get it. So eventually they're going to have to vote. And if they don't vote, that's their problem. Now, I happen to agree with something else. I think we should do the nuclear option. This is a totally different nuclear, by the way, it's called ending the filibuster. I like John Thune. I think he's terrific. But I disagree with him on this point.
- [33:26]
Norah O'Donnell
He said today he wasn't going to do it.
- [33:28]
Donald Trump
Well, that's too bad.
- [33:32]
Jon Favreau
First time you learn that information, that's too bad. Should we send Donald Trump and abolish the filibuster T shirt from the crooked merch store? Because we do have. We're selling them at one point, maybe a hat. Welcome to the club.
- [33:44]
Jon Lovett
A red hat. Yeah. Great. Donald Trump. Welcome to the resistance.
- [33:49]
Jon Favreau
What do you guys make of that? There's basically three ways this thing ends now. Dems cave. There's a deal on the Affordable Care act subsidies somehow, which means the Republicans in Trump cave. Or they get rid of the filibuster, which John Thune is saying no still. But Donald Trump is now all in, which I'm sure did not make John Thune and other Senate Republicans too happy. Love it. What do you think?
- [34:10]
Jon Lovett
Yeah. So it's not just Thune. A bunch of them are pretty firm in saying no on the filibuster. And even Mike Johnson made the point that if they get rid of the filibuster, it will make it easier for Dems to do a bunch of stuff that he doesn't think Congress should do. So right now, they do not have 50 votes to get rid of the filibuster, full stop. Even if you take John Thune out of it. There's a bunch of other people, Collins, Tillis, a few others that are all just no. And so maybe that breaks or maybe they find some rhetorical way around it. I mean, they've already. The filibuster has been slowly chipped away at in so many different ways, but it seems like that's going to hold, at least for the short term.
- [34:53]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I can't tell like why they're so maybe. I know they don't have the votes. But I do think that in terms of public pressure, you can see during this whole answer, you can see Trump wrestling with this because he's like, you know, Nora sort of gives him the, well, you're the, you're the guy that makes the deals that can end this kind of stuff. And he's very much like, well, yeah, I'm gonna get it done, I'm gonna get it. How? Well, the Democrats are gonna cave. Well, what if they don't cave or you're not gonna get it done then? And then he's like, well, so he knows, then he goes to the filibuster.
- [35:23]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah.
- [35:24]
Jon Favreau
So cuz he understands that the public pressure over people paying more for healthcare or losing their food benefits, all that kind of stuff. At some point someone's gonna say the public's gonna be like, hey, Donald Trump, why don't you do something? You're the President, United States.
- [35:36]
Tommy Vietor
And that time should have been several weeks ago because he has been completely absent, completely doing nothing. Congress is not in session. He's not doing anything. He's not making calls like what's going on here?
- [35:43]
Jon Favreau
But if I was Senate Democrat watching that interview, I would have been, that would have bucked me up a little bit in terms of not wanting to cave on this one.
- [36:01]
Jon Lovett
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- [38:24]
Jon Favreau
So on Monday, just a bit before we recorded this, the Trump administration made a partial concession in its campaign to use struggling Americans food benefits as leverage against Democrats. The administration had previously said they wouldn't use emergency funding to make sure 42 million Americans still received snap benefits after the money ran out on November 1st. But thanks to multiple courts ordering the administration to dip into the emergency funding, the government now says they'll use the $4.6 billion in the emergency fund, though they claim it's only enough to fund about half of the usual monthly benefit for the 1 in 8Americans who receive food assistance. It's not clear what will happen next month, but the White House doesn't seem too concerned. On Friday, Trump hosted a Halloween party at Mar A Lago. The White House told reporters that the official theme was the Great Gatsby and quote, a little party never killed anybody, just right on the nose. The only thing that kills anybody is strikes against boats.
- [39:17]
Tommy Vietor
That's what they're doing in starvation.
- [39:19]
Jon Favreau
If you don't have right, yes, I'll say that. Trump was seen at a candlelit table next to Marco Rubio, who looked miserable. Just the Where's Waldo? Of this administration in these pictures. Like find someone looking like they want to die.
- [39:31]
George Reddes
There he is.
- [39:32]
Jon Favreau
And D.C. u.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro in a flapper dress and headband. She was right next to them, too. There were also dancers in feathered headdresses working the crowd. Trump also announced last week that he's completed a gut renovation of the bathroom off the famous Lincoln Bedroom, covering it in black and white marble and gold fixtures. The White House won't say how much it cost or who paid for it. Trump, for his part, called the new look totally in keeping with the Civil War era.
- [40:00]
Jon Lovett
It is so. It is so fucking funny. It is so funny to claim this is pretty much what Abraham Lincoln would have done if he did a bathroom reno. And then it's just this marble clad fucking contractor flip house marble monstrosity. I fucking love it. It's like, whatever the optics of it, we're in the middle of a shutdown. It's all because of moral reasons to find this gross. It is so, like, offensive looking.
- [40:31]
Tommy Vietor
And then to be like, this is.
- [40:33]
Jon Lovett
I did it in Abe's name. This is what he would have wanted. And I also just.
- [40:38]
Jon Favreau
He's just like an old guy who is, like, you know, used to do real estate, and now he's, like, fucking bored. And so he just keeps renovating things in his house and showing them off to people. Like, oh, did you see what I did to the bathroom?
- [40:50]
Jon Lovett
Honestly, it's very Great Gatsby coded, to be honest.
- [40:53]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah. Yeah.
- [40:54]
Jon Lovett
It's like, the funny thing about this, it's like, hey, guys, what do you think the Great Gatsby was about? What do you.
- [40:59]
Tommy Vietor
Straight parties.
- [41:00]
Jon Lovett
Do you think about how fun the parties were? Is that I think.
- [41:02]
Jon Favreau
I love that you think Tom and Daisy were the heroes. Yeah.
- [41:05]
Jon Lovett
Like, what do you.
- [41:05]
Jon Favreau
What do you.
- [41:06]
Jon Lovett
What do you think?
- [41:06]
Tommy Vietor
Did you finish that book?
- [41:08]
Jon Lovett
Yeah. Understand what happened? What happens when you stare at the green light? Do you remember it all? No. Nothing. You didn't get to the end, right? This is not who. No, no, our side of. The side that knows what's in the Great Gatsby and then can't win a fucking election.
- [41:19]
Tommy Vietor
But did you guys see Caroline Levitt's tweet about this? She tweeted, when I first learned a toilet like that existed inside the White House, I was horrified.
- [41:27]
Jon Favreau
That's what. Horrified. Carol. The toilet. The toilet in the Lincoln Bedroom. Okay, so now she can rest easy.
- [41:33]
Tommy Vietor
Also, why are we in there?
- [41:34]
Jon Favreau
Well, maybe she found out too social like everyone else.
- [41:37]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, sometimes you got. Listen, you gotta. You gotta. When you gotta go, you gotta go, right?
- [41:41]
Tommy Vietor
It's emergency.
- [41:42]
Jon Favreau
Do you guys think the ballroom plus the party, plus the bathroom, plus all the other blatant corruption. I mean, it feels like we're. We got a narrative here.
- [41:52]
Tommy Vietor
We got a lot here, man.
- [41:53]
Jon Favreau
And maybe this is gonna help define the shutdown in the minds of people who are paying attention to all this. Or is this just wishful thinking, like, one would think?
- [41:59]
Tommy Vietor
I mean, Trump is clearly in the YOLO period of his presidency, the corruption and, like, he's normally very politically savvy, but the total disregard for optics or the politics of their decision making is genuinely shocking to me. I do think this is where Democrats pay dearly for not having media infrastructure. Like, if a Democrat did this, Fox News would be crucifying them all day, every day until the shutdown was over. I worry that this stuff is just not reaching people. I did sort of wonder, like, would it be smart for somebody. It could be the dnc. It could be someone who wants to run for president, like a Gavin Newsom or some type, to start running a series of digital ads on the corruption, on the sort of optics of the ballroom, the cz, pardon, the toilet, like all of it, and just get it on, you know, do a huge digital buy, like a lot or a long term, like, low boil one. Because I think we got to get these stories in front of people. I think Democrats would be excited about it and would promote it on social media. Like, I donate to somebody that was running ads on this that might actually reach voters who are undecided somehow. I mean, like, let's just get this message out there.
- [43:00]
Jon Favreau
Well, and also, this is. This is perfect fodder for a genuinely creative, funny ad campaign. Like, it just. You put out some 30, 60 seconds ads about this. Don't talk to me. They're not going anywhere.
- [43:14]
Tommy Vietor
Typical narrator voice.
- [43:15]
Jon Favreau
I don't. Yeah, I don't want to hear that shit. Like a tar riff. You could do like a mini movie. Like, it's very. There's just. There's so many opportunities here.
- [43:21]
Tommy Vietor
Gatsby movie.
- [43:22]
Jon Favreau
I mean, love it.
- [43:23]
Jon Lovett
Yeah. Snl.
- [43:24]
Jon Favreau
You working on something?
- [43:25]
Jon Lovett
Yeah, sure. Well, SNL did Property Brothers about the ballroom, and it was great. I do think, by the way, I do think that, like, the ballroom. I don't know if the. I mean, the bathroom is sort of, I think, still making its way through the algorithms, but I do think the ballroom broke through.
- [43:42]
Tommy Vietor
And, like, I also do think it.
- [43:44]
Jon Lovett
Fits into a narrative that is already pretty strongly held across the board. Right. Like, the vast majority of Americans believe Donald Trump's not focused on the issues he was elected to resolve on prices. And then he is building a brand new ballroom, he's tearing down the east wing, he is redoing bathrooms, he is having galas and flapper and roar 20s style parties. If we can't make this something, I would say we don't deserve to have a party, but I would say we even less deserve to have one.
- [44:12]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I will say that the NBC poll that came out over the weekend, CNN poll, I think like the last batch of polling that's just been the last week has been quite bad for Trump. Like it's getting, it's getting a little worse. He was in the sort of mid to low 40s. Now he's like low, you know, NBC was 43, 55. The generic ballot is now 50. 42 Democrats, 70% said that they want their vote in the midterms to be to send a message about opposing the president. And that is the highest number in NBC polling dating back 30 years. And it's gotta be that because in the same poll, the Democratic Party's approval rating is still sitting at 28%.
- [44:50]
Jon Lovett
Right.
- [44:50]
Jon Favreau
So they're up by eight in the generic ballot, which means it's all about Trump, you know.
- [44:56]
Jon Lovett
Right. But a lot of those are Democrats who will vote against Trump no matter what and vote against Republicans in the midterms, but just don't like how Democrats, they don't view them as fighting hard enough. I will say we're hitting the number that Chuck Schumer said was the number we needed to get to for Republicans to crack. Remember when he did that? He was before the previous moment where they didn't do the shutdown. It was that he needed to get Trump into the 30s. Then all of a sudden, Republicans in Congress would start playing ball. So we're here, we're here.
- [45:22]
Jon Favreau
We did it.
- [45:23]
Tommy Vietor
I do love that Trump holds a party in Mar a lago that is 1920s themed. Jeanine Pirro is dressed like a flapper, which I believe was a modern hip hop woman who is like excited about new social freedoms. And yet she's at this event surrounded by trad wives and some of the worst excesses of plastic surgery in Boca history.
- [45:44]
Jon Favreau
And here we are. Yeah, a lot of contradictions. One other big conversation point in the political world that we haven't had the chance to talk about here. Last week, Tucker Carlson sat down to interview white nationalist influencer Nick Fuentes for more than two hours. You might remember Fuentes as Trump's other dinner companion, aside from Kanye west at Mar a Lago in 2020. Two, Fuentes has said that, quote, Hitler is awesome and quote, the Holocaust didn't happen. He's also called J.D. vance, quote, a fat, gay race traitor. In the interview with Tucker, Fuentes attempted to sound slightly more mainstream, though he did accuse Jews of disloyalty to America and basically said they're part of a global conspiracy. Here's a taste for the international Jewish community.
- [46:27]
Tommy Vietor
They're extremely organized and many of them are critical of Israel or Israel's current government or the project of Israel. But I guess what they have in.
- [46:35]
Jon Lovett
Common is that they have this international.
- [46:38]
Jon Favreau
Community across borders, extremely organized, that is.
- [46:44]
Jon Lovett
Putting the interests of themselves before the.
- [46:46]
Tommy Vietor
Interests of their home country.
- [46:48]
Jon Favreau
So Carlson really didn't push back in any substantive ways. And this has set off a bit of a MAGA civil war. Ben Shapiro went hard it after Tucker on Monday calling him, quote, an intellectual coward, a dishonest interlocutor and a terrible friend. On the other hand, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage foundation and one of the guys behind Project 2025, released a video where he criticized everyone who was criticizing Carlson for having Fuentes on. He said that while he, quote, abhors some things that Fuentes has said Fuentes shouldn't be canceled and that Heritage will be keeping up its close association with Carlson, saying, quote, the Heritage foundation didn't become the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement by canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians, and we won't start doing that now. Coming under immediate withering fire, he put out a second post listing and condemning lots of horrid things Fuentes said about Jews and others and appealed to young conservatives not to fall under his sway, who. Lots of justified outrage from everywhere about this. What do you guys think? Love it.
- [47:50]
Jon Lovett
So I. I do think it's important and it's been interesting, right, because Kevin Roberts puts out this statement and says we shouldn't cancel Nick Fuentes. I don't know what this word means anymore, but yeah, you should. That's somebody to cancel. Whatever cancellation means, if it means anything, it should mean you cancel Nick Fuentes. And he approaches ideas like, oh, we're not gonna punch to the right, we're not gonna criticize people on the right. I'll tell you, like, I've been. I think it's like seeing the amount of kind of outrage about this, I think has been genuinely good. But I think part of this has been the ways in which a lot of people have turned a blind eye to how sort of anti Semites, pure, unalloyed, anti semites have found more and more quarter inside of the MAGA movement. And then you have people like Ben Shapiro now calling it out. You have people like Ted Cruz and others speaking to Republican Jewish organizations to call it ouch. But in general, this is a consequence of just how much flirtation there has been with some of the most heinous and reactionary and fanatical far right creatures of social media and the Internet.
- [49:03]
Jon Favreau
Tommy?
- [49:04]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, I think Nick Fuentes is really dangerous and he has been for a while. And his stature is growing, his show is getting more streams, more people are paying attention to him and this is a big deal. I think it's kind of like a seminal moment for the right because like the backstory in the Tucker interview is Tucker had Candace Owens on his show and he picked a fight with Nick Fuentes. I think he called him like a weird little gay kid in his parents basement or something. And then, then he suggested that Fuentes was a like a paid government plant. And that was a bad idea because like Nick Fuentes has nothing better to do than to go back at him. And Fuentes went hard and he talked about Tucker's dad being in the CIA and talked about hypocrisy and inconsistency and I think was largely seen as like getting the better of that exchange. And Tucker saw Nick Fuentes as a threat to his stature as kind of a kingmaker in the Republican Party and decided to stop fighting him and just have him on. And Tucker wasn't the only one. Like I think Glenn Greenwald had him on this guy. Patrick David Bett had him on his podcast as well. But like you said, it wasn't just having him on the show. It was like just how soft the interview was. And there's been a lot of focus on Nick Fuentes. Anti Semitism and rightly so. This guy is like says like Hitler is cool stuff like that. I mean it's not, it's not subtle. He questions the, the scale of death in the Holocaust. He did it via an analogy about how many cookies you could bake that.
- [50:20]
Jon Favreau
It's disgusting.
- [50:21]
Tommy Vietor
It's disgusting. But he's also a vile racist. Like he says the N word all the time on the show. He criticizes people for race mixing, including J.D. vance. And he's also a misogynist in the most literal sense of the world. He wants to repeal the 19th amendment. So like this dude is a, a very scary figure. Someone who I think is trying to step into the void left after Charlie Kirk's assassination and continue to pull Young Republican men to the right. And I think, like is having considerable.
- [50:53]
Jon Favreau
Success and he's, and he knows that he needs to mainstream himself. And he's smart enough to figure out kind of how to do that. When he, like, I'm only, you know, I started listening to the Tucker interview and you know, he frames his whole political view, political beliefs as like, well, you know, it's really about the government of Israel. You know, he starts there and he doesn't. It's not quite like the clips you see from his show that go around once in a while.
- [51:17]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, the clips from his show are just him speaking alone in a room, like to a camera, just ranting for 45 minutes about stuff. And look, the thing to know about him is he can be quite funny. He can come off as reasonable because, like, when the Epstein stuff happened, he was like, Trump's covering this up. Maga's over. This is ridiculous. Like, he'll like, state the obvious at times, but I think that then gives him credibility to launder in these views that like organized Jewry, I think is the word. The terminology he used are controlling all the world's events and have started all the wars. And it's just like your very classic textbook anti Semitism.
- [51:53]
Jon Favreau
I just think it's very notable that you have, you know, glad that Ben Shapiro said something today. I think Ted Cruz has been out there attacking Fuentes and Carlson. Nothing from the White House, nothing from, I mean, you don't expect Trump to be in the weeds on this kind of stuff, but certainly JD Vance has been following this, this back and forth and has, has. Has yet to say anything.
- [52:12]
Jon Lovett
And by the way, J.D. vance, who defended people for having, for just being kids, joking around, for doing sort of a bunch of Holocaust jokes, I don't think it's like, like, you know, Tucker Carlson has been doing this kind of just asking questions stuff, right? Like, he had Candace Owens on. Candace Owens has made all kinds of anti Semitic comments. Tucker had a just asking questions interview with someone saying, well, maybe Churchill was responsible for World War II, when you think about it. And so Tucker has been flirting with kind of the kind of vile recesses of like anti Semitic ideology. And part of it too, like more broadly is there's this. The establishment is bad in every way possible. And so that means the vaccines are bad. The stories we're told, they're all lies. All the stories are lies. Right? The story of COVID is a lie and the story about vaccines generally are a lie. The story about climate is a lie. And you Start going further and further, and eventually it's like, is the story of World War II a lie? Is the story of the Holocaust a lie? What else are they lying to us about? What other. What other. What are their. What other? Like, kind of cultural shibboleths. Can we. Can we interrogate? And. And I think, like, it leads to this, like, really fucking dark place.
- [53:25]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, it could just like this Fortis is attacking J.D. vance's wife. He's going after his kids. He called him a fake Marine. He's just, like, going after him in the most vicious way as possible. You're right. We haven't heard anything from J.D. vance. And this. The Heritage foundation, not only did they. That defend and stand by Tucker, but they. He said it was, like, only a globalist class that was being critical and, like, basically said explicitly. I forget the exact language I deleted. Referred, written it down. That was like, the. The faction of people within the gop. They were, like, vile or something like that. Like the ones criticizing Tucker for having Fuentes on. So he, like, made it about, like, it's this, like, maximalist view that thou shalt not attack another Republican no matter what, under any circumstances. And like Lovett says, like, there's ever a time, man, it's when you're interviewing a neo Nazi. Like, it's maybe time to rethink who your friends are.
- [54:19]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, no shit.
- [54:19]
Jon Lovett
Yeah. One other. One other point about this, too, is like, I.
- [54:22]
Donald Trump
The.
- [54:23]
Jon Lovett
The amount of just pure, like, Nazism and anti Semitism on Twitter is just. Has, like, been growing. Like, it is just unleashed. I. I. Look, it used to be something you would see. Now, like, I, like, I see it in my comments all the time. Like, I just. There is so much vile, unrestrained antisemitism on social media, by the way. You're seeing it with people being, like, unabashed and even, like, it's stupid, but, like, even in their Halloween costumes, being proud about, like, dressing as Nazis and doing blackface. There's a kind of, like, joyful, like, embrace of, like, full, like, you know, mask off bigotry. And it's just very, very dangerous. And you need people like J.D. vance to call it out. As much as I wish it weren't true, it matters whether or not he does.
- [55:12]
Jon Favreau
All right, by the time you're listening to this, it'll be election day. We got Prop 50 here in California, Governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia, the mayor's race in New York City, Public Service Commission in Georgia, and the State Supreme Court in Pennsylvania. These last few Days are usually when the final big endorsements happen and the most high profile surrogates hit the trail. But interestingly, Trump did not appear in person anywhere. He's doing telerallies instead. Still don't really know what those are. I don't hear in Virginia and New Jersey. And also to Zoran Mamdani's delight, Trump endorsed Andrew Cuomo in the 60 Minutes interview. One top Democratic surrogate was out there over the weekend. Here's Barack Obama rallying with Abigail Spanberger on Saturday.
- [55:53]
Tommy Vietor
The president, he has been focused on.
- [55:56]
Jon Lovett
Critical issues like paving over the Rose Garden so folks don't get mud on their shoes and gold plating the Oval Office and building a $300 million ballroom. So, Virginia, here's the good news. If you can't visit a doctor, don't worry.
- [56:15]
Tommy Vietor
He will save you a dance.
- [56:19]
Jon Lovett
The over the top rhetoric, the fabricated.
- [56:22]
Tommy Vietor
Concern conspiracies, the weird videos of a.
- [56:27]
Jon Lovett
US President with a crown on his head flying a fighter jet and dumping poop on.
- [56:37]
George Reddes
Protesting citizens, all of that.
- [56:40]
Jon Favreau
Is designed to distract you from the.
- [56:44]
George Reddes
Fact that your situation has not gotten better.
- [56:51]
Tommy Vietor
Don't poo vote.
- [56:55]
Jon Favreau
There's it. There's our title, there's our episode. You know what I love about that is you think, oh, Barack Obama, he's sort of out of the game. He's not paying attention. He's following it all.
- [57:06]
Tommy Vietor
He's online.
- [57:07]
Jon Favreau
He's online. He saw the poop video thing. He was also like, after he talked about they'll save you a dance, he's like, you can watch all the beautiful people partying in Mar a Lago on truth social. I was like, now that is very specific as well.
- [57:22]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, he also had a good line. He was like, you got a flat tire dei.
- [57:25]
Jon Lovett
Why not at you dei?
- [57:28]
Jon Favreau
Very Obama riff, Very Obama.
- [57:29]
Jon Lovett
Rough.
- [57:30]
Jon Favreau
So final thoughts on these races, how they're all closing. We got Trump nowhere to be found. Barack Obama's out there. He was with Mikey Sherrill as well. In Jersey. The folks behind Prop 50 are feeling good. I don't know. What do you guys think? Any final thoughts? Love it.
- [57:45]
Jon Lovett
I saw kind of a shirtless yelling man holding a giant cross saying the end is nigh. But it was just Bill Ackman, so I don't think it was anything to worry about. There's been all this sort of pre coverage about Mamdani and the future of the Democratic Party. But then you have like Mikey Sherrill, who's a veteran. You got Spamberger who's in the CIA and It's like, I hope they all win because it'll do a great job to. I prefer they all win. To scramble any kind of easy conclusions that people would love to draw to address their priors. That's all.
- [58:30]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, I mean, Jonathan Martin had a great piece over the weekend about how weird it is how Trump has either given up or made things worse. You know, like, look, maybe, look, maybe Trump doesn't care about the Virginia governor's race, maybe doesn't care about New Jersey. Maybe he knows that his mere presence would make things worse for his candidates, so he's doing whatever a tele town hall is. But Prop 50 directly impacts Trump and his agenda. If California can send five more Democrats to Congress, it makes it a lot easier for us to take the House and then subpoena the shit out of him and figure out all the, you know, corrupt deals that he's doing. And again, even if Trump didn't want to campaign in California, he could have made five phone calls and raised $100 million for ads. Yeah, but Republicans are basically off the air fighting against Prop 50 at this point because they just got outgunned. And like, it looks like he'll. It looks like a big loss to Gavin Newsom. Like his primary antagonist in the Democratic Party is likely going to look like he kicked his ass and like, maybe just doesn't care. It doesn't matter. But I bother me.
- [59:30]
Jon Favreau
I think when Trump feels like he's going to lose, his idea is just like, maybe don't say anything about it at all and maybe just kind of like play it cool. Cuz if he went all in and then still lost, which I think that probably would have happened. Like, I don't think, I don't think Donald Trump helps a ballot measure out here.
- [59:48]
Tommy Vietor
Just call Peter Thiel and be like, give me $20 million.
- [59:50]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, I just thought.
- [59:52]
Jon Lovett
But Newsom was like, oh, we don't need to raise any more money. At the very least, you could have had to force Democrats to spend more money in California. You've got some money dropped in here.
- [60:00]
Jon Favreau
I'm interested in the margin in Jersey to see how it is compared to both 2024, when obviously Trump made up a lot of ground in New Jersey and also the last governor's race when Phil Murphy was the incumbent and Jack Cittarelli had run again. And then same thing with Virginia, basically. Like, how does it compare to Kamala's margin in Virginia? Although I would say that Spanberger has pretty much a worse opponent than Sheryl does. For sure. The least popular opponent. So anyway, it'll be interesting. And then of course Mamdani will be. I know, I know. We'll see if we'll see how many Curtis Sliwa voters there are and whether Cuomo can make up any of that, any of that large gap. I think Mamdani's ahead by like anywhere from 10 to 15 points in the polls right now. All right, on that note, please go vote and get everyone you know to vote. In Virginia and Georgia, polls are open until 7pm local. In New Jersey, California and Pennsylvania it's 8pm local and in New York City it's 9pm no excuses. Go Vote Vote votesave America.comVote if you need more information. Also, one final push before we get to my conversation with George Reddis. This is your last chance to get tickets to crooked con in D.C. there are only about 50 tickets left. Our lineup includes Jen Psaki, Tim Miller, Maurice Mitchell, Mark Elias, Representative Pramila Jayapal, Governor Andy Beshear, Senator Brian Schatz, Lena Khan, a strict scrutiny live show, and so much more. If you aren't able to make it, you can listen and watch the content Afterward on our YouTube channels, our podcast feeds, and on crookedcon.com, we'll also be live posting throughout the day on the Crooked media socials. Make sure to head to crookedcon.com to snag tickets before the last few sell out. When we come back, George Reddes this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. As seasons change and days grow darker sooner, it can be a tough time for many. This November, BetterHelp is encouraging everyone to reach out, check in on friends, reconnect with loved ones, and remind the people in your life that you're there. Just as it can take a little courage to send that message or grab coffee with someone you haven't seen in a while, reaching out for therapy can feel difficult too, but it's worth it and it almost always leaves people wondering, why didn't I do this sooner? Better Help therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences and their 12 plus years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored rex. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is one of the world's largest online therapy platforms. Having served over 5 million people globally. And it works with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews this month. Don't wait to reach out. Whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a therapist yourself, BetterHelp makes it easier to take that first step. Our listeners get 10% off their first month@betterhelp.com PSA that's betterhelp.com P S. Aah.
- [63:01]
Norah O'Donnell
The sounds of an Etsy holiday. Now that's special. Want to hear it again? Get original and affordable gifts from small shops on Etsy. For gifts that say I get you shop Etsy.
- [63:18]
Jon Favreau
Joining me in studio today is George Reddes. He's a Venture California native and a U.S. army veteran who was taken by ICE and detained for three days without charges. He's now suing the federal government for the illegal detention. George, thanks for coming on.
- [63:31]
George Reddes
Thank you for having me. It really means a lot.
- [63:34]
Jon Favreau
I mean, I am so sorry this happened to you and I have been so angry on your behalf. And I'm also just like, so grateful for all the ways you've served this country, including speaking out right now. So thank you. I've been thinking about your story a lot. I've been talking about your story a lot. But for people who aren't familiar, maybe you can start by talking a little bit about your life before your detention last summer.
- [64:01]
George Reddes
Yeah. I was born and raised in Ventura, California. I was basically a single mother. My dad was in and out of prison. So to a single mother, have two older siblings. I now have three younger. And so big family. And so just at 18, I mean, I just graduated high school. I went straight into college. I went for photography. Just trying to figure out life at that time. I didn't know what I was doing. I was, I was just, I don't know, I guess making wrong decisions, just. Just hanging with the wrong crowd. Not really hanging with the wrong crowd. I wouldn't say that. I was just making bad decisions myself and just, I don't know, I felt like I was trapped just in a circle of just like, not doing anything. And I just felt like I wasn't doing anything with my life. I just felt like there was no purpose. I felt like I had no purpose. And so I just wanted to do something bigger. I just, like, felt like this wasn't meant for me. Like just doing nothing is not what I'm here to do. And so I felt like there was just something more for me to do. And so an easier option to do something bigger and contribute to, like, the bigger world is easy path is the military. Like, no matter how small the difference, like, the military was a, like, perfect way to start. And so when I was 18, I joined the Army. Ended up going infantry. All the recruiters, they were infantry, so they convinced me to go infantry. And so I ended up going to basic training, Fort Benning, Georgia. I went there for basic training. From there, I went to Fort Wainwright, Alaska. And from Alaska, I ended up deploying to Iraq for 10 months from 2019 to 2020. And after that, I went back to Alaska for a little while, and then I ended up coming down on orders to go to Fort Hood, Texas. And so I ended up finishing the rest of my contract down there. I got out honorably. I was really on the fence on reenlisting or not, if I'm being honest with you. It was just like the. At the time, the military was all I knew. I mean, I was only 22 getting out, and, like, after going through all that, I don't know, I felt like I was done a lot more stuff than, like, kids of my age or, like, people my age. And so, I don't know. The military was all I knew at that time. And just for me, the biggest reason I got out was for my kids, like, not having to be in the field every other week for two weeks at a time or not having to deploy at, like, any second. So I got out, and that was kind of a hard decision for me, just because I didn't know what I wanted to do. And so I got out and I stayed home for a little bit. Just enjoyed time with my family. And I got tired of that. Not of the kids, but just being at home all the time, just. And so I ended up going to school, just trying to figure out what was the right path. So I went and got my license to drive semi trucks. And then after that, it was just. I started a job. Didn't like it. I was like, this isn't me. I ended up going to dental assistant school and just was like, yeah, this isn't me either. But I got my license for that. And I was like, okay, cool. And just something else. And eventually I was just. I got my guard card in Texas, and then I got my guard card in California. It was just easy for me. I mean, it's all I did in the military, so figured just might go something natural. And so I got my guard card. And the beginning of this year, I ended up moving back to California, and I Got a job working security for a security company called Securitas. And so I got a job with them and Glasshouse Farms, where the whole incident takes place, ended up contracting out that security company. And so that's where my security company put me. And so for seven months since the beginning of this year, I was working at Glasshouse Farms. And so that's how I ended up being there when the entire situation took place.
- [68:08]
Jon Favreau
So if you wouldn't mind just explaining like what happened when you got close to work that day in July and saw all the ICE agents. You said your car had a disabled veteran plate and stickers showing your service. You told agents you were a US citizen, an Iraq veteran. Did any of that seem to matter in the moment to them? What happened?
- [68:29]
George Reddes
No, I mean, I'll just start from the beginning. Yeah, sure, make it easier. So that day, July 10, I was going to work as normal. I was pulling up to the main road that my work is on and there's just cars piled up like bumper to bumper. People wasn't. People weren't even in their cars. It was just literally crazy. It was chaos, like all over the place. And so I'm making my way through all this. I mean, even though all that's happening work never called me saying, don't show up today, like don't go in. And so I make my way through all this because even though this is happening, I still got to go to work. And so I make my way through and eventually I get to the front of where everything is happening. And so there's a line of agents lined up across the road, all in gas masks, all in their gear and just lined up across the road, stopping anyone from going. And so there's a car in the right lane and I don't know if there was anyone in there, but I ended up pulling into the left lane right beside the car. I'm a good distance away. I put my car in park, I get out, close my door, and I stand right beside my car. I don't approach them. I'm not getting in their face. And so like the first thing I say when I get out of my car is like, I tell them I'm a US citizen. Like I'm just trying to get to work. I'm not here to protest. Like I'm not part of the protest. I'm not here to get in your guys face. I'm literally just trying to get to work. And they were just completely hostile. There were. Are we able to cuss on here?
- [70:00]
Tommy Vietor
Yes.
- [70:01]
George Reddes
Okay, absolutely. Just had to come from that before. They were just telling me to get the out of there. They were telling me to pull over to the side, they're telling me to get in my car, they're telling me that work is closed, that I'm not going to be going to work today. And so they were just, they're just all being hostile for no reason. And so I ended up asking for a badge number just to, just to let notework know, like I'm trying to go into work, like, and I wasn't able to. And so I asked for a badge number. And so after asking that, for some reason, one of the agents got super upset over that. And that's when he tries to like step forward to try to approach me. And it takes another agent to step forward and like hold him back from approaching. And I see that and just I'm not, wasn't there to escalate. Like, I'm not trying to escalate things further. And so I turn around to get back into my car. And simultaneously as I'm getting back into my car, the line of agents starts walking towards me and they surround my car. And so I'm sitting in my car, I have agents on my driver's side, on my passenger side, pulling on my door handle, banging my window, telling me to get out. I have agents in front of my car and telling me to reverse. I have an agent behind my car, like behind, like in my rearview mirror, telling me to reverse, like trying to show me to reverse. And so just all of them yelling me at me to do different things. And so I'm sitting there just trying to figure out the situation. And eventually they end up reversing me into like an angle sort of, and they reverse me back into the right lane. And once they put my car into the right lane, they end up throwing tear gas into the protesters and they throw tear gas behind my car and it just engulfs my car in tear gas. And so tear gas gets in my car and I'm just trapped in the right lane and my car just trapped with tear gas, trying to hold out as long as I can. And at that point they left my car alone. And the entire time I'm trapped in my car with tear gas. Their vehicles are passing by on the left hand side, their trucks, their buses are passing by on the left hand side. And so I'm just trapped in my car with the tear gas, eyes watery, trying to catch my breath, I couldn't see. And once all their vehicles finished passing by, I don't Know what reason they had or why they did it. But for some reason they re approached my car. And so they re approached my car and they surrounded again. Agents on my driver's side, agents on my passenger side pulling on my door handle, banging on the windows, telling me to get out. The agents in front of my car are telling me to reverse, telling me to pull over to the side. And I'm just in there coughing. I'm like pleading with them. Like I'm trying to leave. Like I can't see. There's a cloud of smoke behind me. Like you could obviously put the entire situation together. Like there's smoke behind me, there's protesters behind me. I, like, I can't see. I'm literally, I'm trying to catch my breath, my eyes are watery, and I'm just pleading with him like I can't see. I'm trying to leave. And just eventually my driver's side ended up giving in and it shattered. A glass flew into my leg immediately following it, shattering. No questions, no nothing. Another agent sticks his arm through and pepper sprays me in the face. They end up dragging me out of the car. They throw me down and I'm basically like a rag doll letting the do whatever. Not fighting, just letting them do whatever. And so even though I'm letting them do whatever, when they throw me on the ground, an agent comes and he kneels on my back, and then another one comes and he nails on my neck. And the entire time they're like that. I'm telling them, like, I can't breathe, like I'm taught. Like I'm just pleading with them, I can't breathe. You guys, like you could put the entire situation together. I was just trapped in my car with tear gas, trying to catch my breath. You guys just pepper sprayed me in the face and now you guys are kneeling on my neck and back. Like, I'm telling you guys I can't breathe. And I mean, they didn't care. I couldn't tell you how long I was like that for. Just eventually they zip tied my hands and they picked me up and they ended up walking me back to the farm where I worked. And the entire time they're walking me back, they're just asking each other, like, like, who's taking responsibility for him? Like, who's he going with? Like, who's taking responsibility for what happened? And they're just all asking each other this as they're walking me back. And so they ended up walking me back to the farm.
- [74:31]
Jon Favreau
Are you talking to them at this point, like, are you asking them like, hey, I'm a citizen. What, what are we doing?
- [74:35]
George Reddes
Why are you at that point I'm telling like I'm a citizen, like I don't, like I don't know what's wrong, like I'm a citizen. Then I was just telling them that the entire way back they didn't care. Took me back to the farm and they sat me down right there in the dirt with my hand zip tied behind my back for about four hours or so. And throughout that time they only asked me for my ID once. And I tell them it's in my car, like, like I'd be more than happy to show you. Like I have my id, like I could prove I'm a citizen. Like on my car it says like I have DV plates for disabled veteran. Like I have a Iraq combat veteran sticker on my windshield. Like I told them I was a veteran and that was it. That's the only time they asked me for my id and that was it. After the time there they ended up putting me back. They put me in an unmarked car and they drove me into like a convoy, kind of like basically a convoy to a Navy base in Port Wainimi. And they took us onto the base and took us to this giant open field on the base and every federal agency you could think of as their FBI, Homeland Security, icbp, people from the Navy National Guard, and they take me there and there, they do my fingerprints, they swab, they swab my mouth for DNA, they take my picture, they end up reading me my rights there, but saying that they were only investigating what had happened. They never said that I was charged with anything. They never said I was being arrested. They just said that they were investigating what had happened and why I was there and that was it. And so I literally told them the entire situation exactly how I'm telling you and that was it. They asked me the questions and then they put me back in the car. And from there they took me to the Metropolitan Detention center in downtown LA. And we got there around 10:30 at night. And I would assume they in process me like a normal prisoner. They strip searched me and at that time I asked them like, like when would I be able to call a lawyer, like could I call my family? And they just ignored me completely. And so while I'm they're strip searching me, I would tell them like my skin is burning, like they sprayed me with tear gas and, or they spread like I was trapped in my car with tear gas and they Sprayed me with pepper spray. Like, my skin is burning. And I tell them that, and they tell me, like. Like, I'll get over it, the effects will wear off, that it'll pass. And so that was it. They end up doing my fingerprints, and they took my mug shot. And after that, they took me upstairs and they put me in the cell with one other person, the professor, who was also arrested that day. And so that entire first Thursday night, I'm in the cell and my body's just burning. My hands, my face, my skin, just my entire body is on fire. No other way to put it. Just an extreme heat that just would not go away.
- [77:26]
Jon Favreau
It wouldn't let you wash your hands, shower, wash your face.
- [77:30]
George Reddes
So they ended up giving me giving us dinner and sandwiches in a sandwich bag. And so I took the sandwiches out and I filled up the sandwich bag with water from the sink. And so that entire night, I was alternating my hands in this bag of water, just trying to relieve the heat. And I don't know if it helped or if it made it worse, but it just would not go away. And so that entire first Thursday night, I'm just burning that just like that. The entire first Thursday night, I don't sleep. And so Friday ends up coming around, and they finished doing my IN processing. They let me talk to a medical, and it's just basically about our past life and how we are now. And after that, they let me talk to a psychiatric nurse. And after the questions she asked and the way I answered them, she felt like it was best to put me on suicide watch. And so that Friday morning, they ended up putting me on suicide watch. And suicide watch is just this yellow concrete room, concrete block in the corner with a thin mattress on top. There's this tiny little rectangle window. It's a glass door. And an officer sits out there 24 7. A psychiatric nurse comes and checks on me once a day to make sure I don't kill myself. The light. They leave the light on 24 7. I'm in there naked in a hospital dress. And I'm like that from Friday morning to Sunday afternoon to literally the point I'm released. And so Sunday morning, close to afternoonish comes around, and an officer comes up to the cell. He walks up and he just says, I'm off suicide watch and that I'm going to get released and walks away. And so even though he says I'm off suicide watch, I'm there still in those conditions. And, I mean, I don't want to get my hopes up. I Mean, I'm still there. And so I'm there for a couple more hours, and eventually another officer comes up and they open the door, they walk me downstairs, they give me back my clothes, and I sign for my phone, my watch, and my piercings and stuff, and that was it. He. They said that I was free to go, that all the charges on me had been dropped and that I was free to go. And so that wasn't good enough for me. And I asked them. So I was locked up in here, and I missed my daughter's birthday for no reason. And it was just the loudest silence ever. Literally the loudest silence ever. No explanation, no nothing. They let me call for a ride and they walked me out, and that was it. I was free to go. Never heard anything back from them. Never nothing. Until I wrote an op ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, and then they came out with a tweet or whatever saying that I assaulted agents and that stories like mine demonize ICE agents. And it was just crazy to hear because after all that, after just being released, no charges after, even on the paperwork, it says that I was only detained pursuant to arrest. Basically, I was arrested for being arrested. That's the only information it says on the paperwork is that I was arrested for being arrested, basically. And so with that being the only explanation in them tweeting this, it was really crazy to hear. It was insane that this is really the stance that they're willing to go behind and die on, that. That I'm just, like, this crazy person, and, like, they just try to paint me as this villain and, like, I'm this bad guy when that's not the truth at all. I mean, there's so much evidence out there. There's helicopter footage. And so it's just like, why.
- [81:17]
Jon Favreau
I was gonna say I've seen the footage.
- [81:19]
George Reddes
Yeah.
- [81:20]
Jon Favreau
On the local news, and it was. There's a lot of footage of you. Like, the whole story you tell about when you get out of the car and then when you back up, like, that's all on film.
- [81:29]
George Reddes
Yes, exactly, exactly, exactly.
- [81:33]
Jon Favreau
What was going through your mind in those three days that you were in. In jail? Like, what did you think that. Did you think that you were getting out? Did you think they were going to send you somewhere else? Were you like, how am I going to get on the phone with a lawyer or my family?
- [81:50]
George Reddes
Honestly, the only thing on my mind were my kids. Like. Like when? Like. I mean, the last thing I told him was, like, I'll see you later. And, like, later never came and so.
- [82:01]
Jon Favreau
How old are your kids?
- [82:02]
George Reddes
My daughter had just turned 3 that Saturday, and my son is 8.
- [82:10]
Jon Favreau
So you finally get out of this nightmare, you go back home, and then you decide to file a lawsuit against the federal government for seemingly violating multiple constitutional rights that you have as an American. What are you hoping for out of the lawsuit, and what do you want them to do?
- [82:33]
George Reddes
So what I want out of the lawsuit is obviously accountability. I mean, you don't just go to go around and take away people's rights and, like, get to treat people that any way you want. I mean, like, it's just crazy, like, to have no accountability and just to take no responsibility and no explanation for me for what happened, it's just crazy. And so for myself, I want that accountability of just, like, take ownership of what you did to me. Take ownership of what you did and don't lie. Like, just tell everyone the truth. And I guess the bigger picture for the bigger change is for them to amend 1983 to add five words in it, which would include federal officers, which would allow people to sue federal officers. Officers, basically, because right now, it's basically, they're untouchable. I mean, if a state officer had done what they did to me, I would be able to go to court right now and file a lawsuit for everything that happened. But it's the fact that because they're federal officers, I show up to the courthouse and they tell me basically, like, unfortunately for you, like, yeah, your civil rights were violated, but unfortunately for you, they're federal officers, and there's no clear path for you to file a lawsuit. So they shut the door in my face, and not only my face, but for everyone that's filing a lawsuit currently, they're gonna be met with the same endeavor that I am just a door shut in your face. And so my bigger goal is to amend that statue, make it where to every single person could get accountability and justice for what happens to them. For a federal officer, any federal officer, FBI, atf, ice, irs, it doesn't matter. Any officer that violates their rights, it gives them accountability and justice. And so that's the bigger goal, and that's my bigger message for everyone.
- [84:37]
Jon Favreau
I became aware of the way that the law is reading. The New York Times did a story, I think, the other week, where they wrote about Trump suing his own Justice Department now for coming for the charges and the investigations against him before he became president for the second time. And he will now settle his own lawsuit against his own government for something like over $200 million won't even go to court. He'll just, obviously the federal government will settle with Donald Trump. And then they contrasted, I'm sure you've seen this, they contrasted that with you.
- [85:16]
George Reddes
Yes.
- [85:17]
Jon Favreau
And people like you who've been detained. And I had not realized that if you are deprived of your constitutional rights as an American citizen by federal officers, it becomes very, very challenging to win that lawsuit. Like, you can still, I guess you can still file it, but that these, these federal agents have almost total immunity here, basically.
- [85:39]
George Reddes
And so it's just crazy. Like, you would think that if anyone violates your rights, no matter who right, you would be able to get justice for what happened to you. And it's just crazy to think and just to realize, like, that's not the way it works. And you would think, like a clear path would just be to, okay, let's amend the statue and let's fix this problem, this crack in the law for everyone, like, it just doesn't affect the left or right, affects everyone. Like they could violate anyone's rights. And so that's scary. It's scary that there's no justice for anyone. And so it's a very concerning hole in the law.
- [86:16]
Jon Favreau
And so I know you went to Washington last week or the other week.
- [86:21]
George Reddes
Yes.
- [86:21]
Jon Favreau
Tell me about your trip to Washington.
- [86:24]
George Reddes
So my trip to Washington, it was fun. It was my first time in Washington. The weather was nice. Everyone told me it's not normally like that.
- [86:33]
Jon Favreau
It's true.
- [86:34]
George Reddes
So, I mean, Washington was fun. I spoke to lawmakers, I spoke to senators and basically told them my story in person, gave them the solution, basically, like I'm telling you men, 1983. And just basically what I told you. And so I literally gave them that explanation to everyone I spoke with. And the biggest, like, confront I got out of it was there's nothing wrong with it. It's just politics. The bigger there's nothing wrong with the law. There's nothing, there's nothing law with amending that law. But unfortunately.
- [87:11]
Jon Favreau
Oh, because of politics, they can't.
- [87:12]
George Reddes
Politics. Well, is the trouble with amending it.
- [87:16]
Jon Favreau
You got Congressman Raskin and Johnson too. They're going to try to push for it, but yeah, clearly Republican Congress is not going to pass it. Yeah, a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president may, hopefully, but we are not there yet.
- [87:29]
George Reddes
I don't know. I mean, that's also a big reason why people, it's a big reason for people to speak out and to call, to call their people in charge, for everyone to make their voice heard. I mean, it's all our responsibility.
- [87:40]
Jon Favreau
So I don't know if you saw Christine Ohm, the Department of Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, she was asked at a press conference yesterday about American citizens like you being arrested and detained for no reason. It's happening more and more, and she said, quote, no American citizens have been arrested or detained. We focus on those who are here illegally. And anything you would hear or report that would be different, that is simply not true in false reporting. Any response to that?
- [88:09]
George Reddes
I mean, I don't really. I don't feel like I need to respond when, I mean, I mean, it's all over the news. It's all over social media. Like, I'm not blind. Like, I obviously see what's going on in the world. People see what's going on in the world. Like, just because they say something doesn't make it true or doesn't mean people believe them. And so, I mean, they could say whatever they want. I mean, the facts are out there. People are able to. People are able to film and, like, take pictures and record. So, I mean, everyone gets to see the truth. I mean, so just because you send out a tweet or just because you make a comment doesn't make it true. And so, I mean, I don't really need to say anything. Yeah, I mean, hopefully my case goes to court or whatever. And I mean, the truth gets to be presented in everyone to, like, in front of everyone and in front of the world.
- [88:56]
Jon Favreau
How did you make the choice to speak up at a time when a lot of very rich and powerful people who know this is wrong have decided to stay quiet? Like, were you at all scared to do this?
- [89:12]
George Reddes
No, I was not scared one bit. Like, I mean, I don't scare it easily, but, like, I mean, you don't just. I. I'm not the type of person to just let something happen to them and, like, walk away. Like, I'm definitely not that type of person to see something wrong and turn the other cheek. And so. So, I mean, you don't just get to do this to not only me, but everyone else and just not take accountability. And so for me, once this happened to me, like, I mean, I never had a voice before. Like, I never had a platform or been on the news to, like, make my voice heard or anything. So, I mean, and now that being given the opportunity, I mean, I always talked about wanting to make a change in the world. I mean, I did before the Army. And so, like, I ask for all this food on my plate, and when it's finally on my plate. Like, I can't turn it away now. Like, what am I going to do? Like, just let this keep happening? No, I mean, I understand people. Some people have their reasons for not wanting to. I mean, maybe family, maybe other reasons. They're just scared of retaliation. But I mean, that's not me whatsoever. I'll take this head on. I'll take the weight of the world against me and I'll see this through. I'm not problem. I mean, the truth is out there and I'll keep saying it and I'll keep letting it be known.
- [90:36]
Jon Favreau
What do you think about what's happening in the country right now?
- [90:40]
George Reddes
I think it's crazy and I think is absolutely wrong. You don't just get a mask up and cover your face and just go around questioning people, asking them if they're here illegal or not. You don't just get a nail on people's back. You don't just get to break cars. You don't get to violate people's rights in general and just do all this. All these things. It's completely wrong and it's crazy. And so that's another reason why I'm doing this. Hopefully doing this and allowing people to take accountability for agents violating civil rights makes them think twice before they even think about doing something. And so I'm hoping that it fixes them. Doing this fixes the overall picture and fixes the problem with the way agents act.
- [91:31]
Jon Favreau
Yeah.
- [91:31]
George Reddes
And because it's just crazy. There's no way. There's no way this is like the right type of. There's no way. It's complete and utter insanity with the way they act and the way they treat people. It's just completely wrong. Like, it's crazy.
- [91:48]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, it is. How are your kids handling this?
- [91:52]
George Reddes
I keep them away from this as much as possible. I mean, there's no reason for them to hear it. I mean, when they get older, I mean, if they want to look into it, I mean, that's on them. But I mean, I just keep them away from it, so.
- [92:04]
Jon Favreau
Well, I'm glad you're back home with them.
- [92:07]
George Reddes
Thank you.
- [92:07]
Jon Favreau
They're going to be. They're going to be really proud of their dad someday.
- [92:10]
George Reddes
Thank you. I really do appreciate it.
- [92:11]
Jon Favreau
They are. Because what you're doing is. I think it's brave, I think it's hard. And like I said, it is a fuck of a lot more than a lot of people who have a lot more protections and a lot more power are doing right now. So, like, you know you've served the country bravely even before this incident, and you're continuing to do so now. And I'm really grateful for that. And I'm grateful that you stopped by and told your story. So thanks.
- [92:36]
George Reddes
Thank you for having me. I really do appreciate it. I mean, I can't share my story without people like you. And so, I mean, it's just as meaningful as me telling my story. And so together, we are making change.
- [92:47]
Jon Favreau
We will, we will keep sharing it and we'll keep pushing until we. Until we get that law passed.
- [92:52]
George Reddes
Thank you so much. Thank you.
- [92:59]
Jon Favreau
That's our show for today. Thanks to George Reddes for coming on and for fighting back. We'll be back in your feed with our reactions to election night and then we'll be headed to D.C. for our live show and Crooked Con. Talk to everybody then. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review that helps boost the this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Illich Frank and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrienne Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Kiril Pelaviev, David Toles, and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
- [94:12]
Norah O'Donnell
Ah, the sounds of an Etsy holiday. Now that's special. Want to hear it again? Get original and affordable gifts from small shops on Etsy. For gifts that say I get you shop Etsy.
- [94:27]
Jon Lovett
What's poppin, listeners?
- [94:30]
George Reddes
I'm Laci Mosley, host of the podcast Scam Goddess.
- [94:32]
Norah O'Donnell
The show that's an ode to fraud.
- [94:34]
Jon Lovett
And all those who practice it.
- [94:36]
Jon Favreau
Each week I talk with very special.
- [94:38]
George Reddes
Guests about the scammiest scammers of all time. Wanna know about the fake errors? We got em. What about a career con man?
- [94:45]
Norah O'Donnell
We've got them too. Guys that will wine and dine you.
- [94:48]
George Reddes
And then steal all your coins. Oh, you are represented because representation matters. I'm joined by guests like Nicole Byer.
- [94:56]
Jon Favreau
Ira Madison iii, Conan o' Brien and more.
- [95:00]
George Reddes
Join the congregation and listen to Scam Goddess.
- [95:02]
Norah O'Donnell
Wherever you get your podcasts.